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Find Arabic manuscripts

Our Arabic manuscripts collection includes more than 15,000 works in over 14,000 volumes. Details are to be found in a number of catalogues

Published date:

2 October 2015

Newly catalogued Arabic manuscripts are included in the Library’s Explore Archives and Manuscripts. However, details of most of our manuscripts are currently only accessible in printed catalogues and handlists. Some of these are available online and others in our reading room.

We are gradually transferring the contents of the older catalogues into our online catalogue Explore the British Library. Until the recataloguing is complete, however, readers will need to consult the catalogues below to find detailed descriptions of our Arabic manuscript holdings. These have been arranged by collection in chronological order.

Arabic manuscripts acquired by the British Museum (before 1973) and the British Library (after 1973)

Edwards, E. 'Some rare and important Arabic and Persian manuscripts from the collections of Hajji ‘Abdu’l-Majid Belshah now either in the British Museum or in the private collection of Professor Edward G. Browne' in A volume of oriental Studies presented to Edward G. Browne , ed. by T. W. Arnold and R. A. Nicholson (Cambridge, 1922)

Hamarneh, Sami K. Catalogue of Arabic manuscripts on medicine and pharmacy at the British Library (Cairo, 1975)

Stocks, P., Subject Guide to the Arabic Manuscripts in the British Library, ed. by Colin F. Baker (London, 2001)
A subject guide listing all Arabic manuscripts from the British Museum Library and the India Office Library and those acquired by the British Library

Manuscripts acquired by the British Museum after 1912 which are not in Vassie’s Handlist (being on subjects other than Islamic law, Qur’anic sciences and Hadith) are entered in the general catalogue of Manuscripts in Oriental Languages, available in the Asian & African Studies reading room.